OpenOffice for the Mac goes gold

OpenOffice for the Macintosh is finally out of beta, just in time for Apple's WorldWide Developer Conference. Binaries for the 1.0 General Master are already available for download from mirrors closer to the International Date Line.

The Mac version runs under the X11 Windowing System, rather than native Aqua interface, but thanks to Apple's X11 window manager, integration is fast and fairly seamless. The OpenOffice code also supports other X11 window managers, including for example, file browsing support for the OroborOSX/XDarwin window manager.

The 170MB binary contains a word processor, spreadsheet, graphics and charting packages and supports 27 languages. We continue to receive regular inquiries about options for Arabic and Hebrew on the Macintosh. Microsoft has left these users high and dry in Office:X and Internet Explorer, and recently announced that development of IE would be discontinued on the Mac.

Does OpenOffice help these readers? The answer is, not yet. The next point release, OpenOffice 1.1 due this autumn, will support right to left languages. Microsoft's Israel representatives have told users that an OS X version of ThinkFree Office will support Hebrew. ®